I agree with Carrol. Back in the early 1960s none of the leading center-left politicians (i.e. Mendes-France, Mitterand, etc.) could have done what De Gaulle was able to do with Algeria. And none of them would have dared to even try.
The same applies to Israel IMO. We saw what happened when they had a government of the center and center-left, which was that its leaders felt bound to more hawkish than thou. Hence, two wars within two years. The last time around when Netanyahu was prime minister, there was all manner of belligerent rhetoric coming out of his mouth but no wars.
If any Israeli politician who is in the position to reach a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, it is Netanyahu. There is of course no guarantee that he would have the inclination to do so, and if he did, he could still wind up suffering the fate of Rabin. But if he were to be so inclined, he is the one politician who might be able to pull it off.
Jim F.
---------- Original Message ---------- From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Joseph Massad gets tenure Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:11:35 -0500
Shane Mage wrote:
>
> On Apr 9, 2009, at 8:49 AM, Marv Gandall wrote:
> > ... the idea being, of course, that you need a de Gaulle to withdraw
> > from Algeria and a Nixon to go to China because they won't draw fire
> > from
> > the right...
>
> As to deGaulle, that idea is quite false. deGaulle set off a violent
> insurrectionary resistance (the OAS) and barely escaped assassination.
This doesn't refute Marvin's point, since against anyone else the "insurrectionary" forces from the right would have been much stronger.
Carrol
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